


The Man in the Mirror

by screwthisimeating



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, M/M, Mild Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-07 01:37:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20301307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/screwthisimeating/pseuds/screwthisimeating
Summary: Harry could not believe his own eyes when it was not his own reflection staring back at him in the mirror.A story about first and second chances.





	The Man in the Mirror

**Author's Note:**

> I am a clown because my laptop broke down half a year ago and I had to get it repaired and that was my whole entire excuse for abandoning another story on here for SIX MONTHS. Well, I wrote this in the meantime and it will probably take up about five chapters or something, so YES, I WILL FINISH IT and I will eventually get back to the other story but I should probably stop acting as if I have 100 people following me on here who actually care about what I produce, haha. This is already halfway finished on my word document, I have high hopes.
> 
> Okay, so quick disclaimer: English is not my mothertongue and I cannot ask anyone to proofread this because I don't know anybody (not just personally, I literally don't know anyone) personally on this fandom who would offer and I cannot ask my English teacher to proofread my online fantasy fetish porn sex stories about Harry Potter but I don't want not to get an A in my senior year of German highschool. I could also use the #wedielikemen hashtag but I'd rather die a woman, thanks.
> 
> Enjoy if possible and please point out all the stupid mistakes I made so that I can learn from them.

It was winter in London. The trees and their branches hung low, submitting to the weight of the snow as if gravity made them bow before the passers-by like simple servants. The bald trees seemed old and wrinkly looking like this, almost like mimicking the way a human‘ s posture changes with age and how the spine starts to curve. It is bittersweet how slowly but surely approaching your own death makes you bow in utter surrender or maybe acceptance. As Harry walked the frozen paths leading to his humble home referred to as Grimmauld Place, he wondered what it was that made death seem so fearsome. That sounded boastful even to his own mind but as someone who gave up on immortality with just the snapping of a wand, he felt like having special qualifications in judging whether life was worth living for eternally. To him, death would always be the gentle embrace of his loving mother and father whom he looked up to because it was in his very human nature to copy their behaviour. In fact, he had never been able to do so that because to do so, he would have had to actually, genuinely meet them but they were killed by a psychopathic mass murderer. Death would always mean relief and peace and letting go of the responsibilities life made him bear, to be harboured like a silent treasure and cradled by the ice cold sea. To him it was not fearsome. The fallen leaves on the ground were soaking wet and he felt a sense of disappointment for not being able to make them crunch but it was the entirely wrong season for that. It was winter.

He arrived at his destination and unwrapped himself out of the several layers of clothing he had put on. Harry had always been someone prone to freezing. In every relationship, Ron once explained, there is always a furnace and a block of ice. Harry felt like zero degrees Kelvin. He left his thick black coat hanging on the coat rack and asked Kreacher for peppermint tea. Surprisingly, Kreacher had gotten quite enraptured with him in the last few years after the end of the war. Maybe, just like some of the Death Eaters had claimed to feel like in their tribunals, he felt like it was time to finally be a good house elf because the constant pressure of needing to obey to the forces of the Dark were finally disintegrating. Maybe house elves also didn‘t think that far and Dobby had been an exception. Essentially, Harry felt quite content with how they were treating each other. After offering Kreacher actual payment for his service and a few weeks of moping around, their relationship started gradually improving, and after forming a band of mutual respect and tolerance, they even became something akin to friends. 

With the mug in his hand and equipped with some light reading material, he made his way to the table in the drawing room where he sat down on a comfortable chair he had picked up on a local muggle flea market where nobody knew of one Harry Potter. He then began to let his mind wander into the realms of the Mountain Trolls in the Eastern former Yugoslavia. Soon, he fell asleep in a peaceful slumber that was only interrupted and disturbed by a slight breeze cooling his neck that let the longer strands of his hair fall into his face in a way that made his nose tickle. As he awoke, he started looking for the cause of the disturbance and quickly found the window in his bedroom that had carelessly been left open by him in the morning and the cold wind was gushing out of. Harry closed it. Something felt entirely wrong and he quickly spun around when he noticed movement in the corner of his eye. He chuckled with relief when he noticed that it had only been his own reflection in the mirror. Sometimes he could still feel the paranoia.

It was the weekend and a habit of Hermione, Ron and Harry to meet up in a pub nearby. They didn’t do things like that as often anymore; Harry wanted to avoid the eye of the public as much as possible and his friends were preoccupied with their two children and their careers. They did meet up in the Burrow for dinner with their other friends quite frequently though. 

“Harry, did you hear that Luna got engaged?” Hermione asked and Harry shook his head. “To whom? To Rolf? I thought they were already married?” She smirked, “Everyone thought that. It’s symbiotic, just like Ron and I.” She noticed that this made him stiffen. He didn’t like being the only one in his group of friends that had only ever had one relationship as a teenager and a handful of horribly embarrassing one night stands. But he also did not want to come across as desperate by any means.

As always, Hermione quickly elaborated what she had meant with that for Harry to not feel insulted, “This kind of relationship is not one to be found or stumbled upon, Harry. It is hard work, communication and lots of hardships to overcome together and grow from individually.” Harry didn’t like the direction this was heading into.

“Mate, I think what Hermione is trying to say is that you should get yourself bloody out there because clearly, no offence made, you need to find yourself a funny girl. Or a boy. I don’t even know with you anymore”, Ron added as he slapped his shoulder in light hearted humour. “And you won’t always be looking like the handsome fellow you are right now.”

“Maybe you should start working at the Ministry again. I can make it work. Well, you could also make it work on your own, you are Harry Potter. Think about it. Not in prospect of finding a significant other but to have an occupation and to get your mind off things, blow off some steam. People don’t only work for the money. You certainly wouldn’t need it”, Hermione said.

With a sigh he nodded, “I do admit that I would like to get out more. I don’t want to end up a hermit. But it’s not as easy as it seems to be when five years have already passed since the war and the attention I receive on a daily basis just won’t die down. I feel like some kind of public spectacle. It unnerves me. It makes me feel uncomfortable in my own skin. Like looking at old pictures of yourself when you were 13 and evidently didn’t take care of your hygiene too seriously.”

“Well, yes. But what do you think Hermione feels like? She is the Minister of Magic and my wife!” “Silly, what would you be standing in the spotlight for?” Hermione laughed at his scandalized expression. “For being the world’s most handsome bloke!” His wife patted his head adoringly as she nodded furiously as to mock him. 

It was a few days later when Harry decided to follow his friends’ advice and thus he went to the same pub by his lonesome. He didn’t spot anyone he knew when he entered and the lighting was dimmed enough to not make him stand out as much. Most of the time when he went out nowadays, he only ever visited the Muggle hotspots because the few wizards strutting around could not do more than walking past him wide-eyed. He slandered to the bar like one would to his own death sentence and ordered himself a glass of Firewhiskey on ice. It had been a while. As he took a sip, he let a slight sigh escape his lips and he took his glasses off. He had never minded the bitterness of the liquor and the burn in his throat when gulping it down that would always remind him of the few rogue and careless nights in the Gryffindor common room with his friends and fiends by his side – united in a small rebellion – while playing exploding snap and making out with Ginny Weasley. He could do nothing but grin at the memories of awkwardly fumbling around in the bathrooms or at the Burrow. To this day, he always expected his first kiss with a new acquaintance to taste like artificial tasting cherry chapstick. Her lips had been so very soft. Harry cannot deny that he has missed feeling the softness of the touch of another human’s body. To be pressed against someone in the most intimate way in a very special embrace with very little to no space between two bodies moving in unison. To share the same breath, to leave tender kisses on the forehead, the nose and cheeks and on the breastbone, to intertwine one’s legs and leave them like a Gordian knot only to be untangled by the cut of a sharp sword. 

That night, for the first time in a long while, he didn’t leave the pub on his own, as the liquor had made his tongue loosen up and made him engulf himself in a long conversation with the pretty girl who was serving him his drinks. There was no way that she didn’t know who he was but she was too polite or too shy to mention it and to ask him any questions about it, so in an unspoken agreement they both let it slide as a sign of mutual convenience. He felt delighted. When her shift was over at midnight, he took her home. He was not inebriated enough to let his unreasonability take a hold of him in order to try apparition They walked, it wasn’t far, and they lightly touched hands on the way there. Kreacher disappeared as soon as he saw that Harry had company. 

Harry lead her to his bedroom, closed the door respectfully and casted a wandless Lumos, light enough to lift the mood for what was coming next. They kissed, he stripped off her clothes and she his and he took her to bed.

And everything would have gone great if it wasn’t for the man in the mirror staring at the two naked forms in the sheets. Harry froze at the sight of Tom Riddle trapped on the surface his own reflection and the girl’s should be seen on. Sitting in a foreign room on an unmade bed, barefooted, wearing a plain white shirt and black slacks, was his worst nightmare looking like he had in his earlier years – an Adonis with his windswept hair, noble and sharp facial features and piercing eyes. He looked like a sin and Harry knew that this creature was sinful like the devil and that has always made it even worse – knowing that whatever corrupted soul possessing this angelic looking shell of a body had given up on beauty without a second thought because this man had only ever cared about one thing and it was as black as the void or the hollow space in between two galaxies. It meant suffering, torture, agony and pain. He was scared, terrified, shaking. The girl, Anna, asked if something was wrong. He couldn’t believe that after all he had went through, it wasn’t over. It was not the end and the evidence was looking at his naked body shamelessly. As he continued to stare at the man in the mirror who was staring back at him with curious interest, a shiver crept up and down his spine. He felt himself go flaccid. She noticed and quickly put space between them but she hadn’t seen the pair of blue eyes in the mirror. Was the image of her body displayed on top of his an image of disgust? In what felt like a number of seconds, she was dressed and gone with the wind in teary eyed shame and self-consciousness and when he went after her, no matter how many times Harry apologized, the thought that she wasn’t good enough to satisfy Harry Potter’s needs didn’t leave her pretty head alone, because while she didn’t mind being seen as a mere convenience, she didn’t want to be an inconvenience and it had hurt her pride so badly. Harry understood and he felt guilty because he didn’t want her to know what hallucination it was that had scared the boy hero so intensively and therefore had remained quiet on the topic. He wasn’t able to muster up an alternative explanation. So she left. When Harry carefully approached his mirror again, a strong grip around his wand, he stared back into familiar green eyes. 

**Author's Note:**

> That was it, my dudes. Leave a comment if you have something to say.


End file.
